PPP's monthly North Carolina poll finds Pat McCrory's approval rating dropping for the first time into the 30s. 39% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 51% who disapprove. Independents, who supported him overwhelmingly last year, have soured and now give him poor marks by a 41/49 margin. His once respectable crossover support from Democrats is now becoming close to nonexistent at 14% approval. And even with Republicans he's down to a 69/20 spread.

McCrory's signing of a controversial abortion bill and the way he's handled it is responsible for a lot of his problems. Just 27% of voters think he kept his campaign promise not to enact any further restrictions on abortion, to 50% who think he broke it. And 57% think it was inappropriate for him to give protesters cookies instead of meeting with them with just 26% thinking that was an acceptable action. Even among Republican voters only 44% consider McCrory's cookie episode to have been acceptable.

Abortion's just the start of what voters are unhappy with the Republicans in control of state government about though. Just 33% say they support the budget that was passed to 52% who are opposed. And there's particular anger about the end of the sales tax holiday- 55% of voters say they disagree with that move to only 34% who think it was ok.

The upshot of all this is that 50% of voters in the state think the General Assembly is causing North Carolina national embarrassment to 34% who disagree with that sentiment. Only 35% approve of the job Republicans are doing overall of running state government to 56% who give them poor marks, and 51% in the state think Republican control has been a bad thing for North Carolina to just 38% that consider it a positive.Voters now say that if there was an election for the legislature today they would vote Democratic by a 50/41 margin, matching the largest lead we've ever found for the party on this measure.

The one group coming out ahead in all of this is the Moral Monday protestors. They have a 49/35 statewide favorability rating now, and voters say by a 47/38 margin that they have a higher opinion of the protestors than the General Assembly. Ironically McCrory's approval in March was 49/35...but that's where the protesters are now as he's dropped a net 26 points over the last 5 months. to 39/51.."

"Raleigh, N.C. — Gov. Pat McCrory issued the first veto of his administration Thursday, rejecting legislation that would have required people applying for welfare benefits to pass a drug test.

House Bill 392 also would have required social service offices to verify applicants' criminal history and share that information with law enforcement. The governor signed an executive order to carry out that portion of the bill.

“While I support the efforts to ensure that fugitive felons are not on public assistance rolls and to share information about them with law enforcement, other parts of this bill are unfair, fiscally irresponsible and have potential operational problems,” McCrory said in a statement. “Drug testing Work First applicants as directed in this bill could lead to inconsistent application across the state’s 100 counties. That’s a recipe for government overreach and unnecessary government intrusion.”

The governor pointed to the failure of similar drug-testing programs in Utah, Arizona and other states, saying "it makes no sense to repeat those mistakes in North Carolina.”

“This is not a smart way to combat drug abuse,” he said.

The executive order, dubbed “Strengthening Fugitive Apprehension and Protecting Public Benefits,” directs state agencies to develop a plan and recommend the best way to exchange information about fugitive felons."

gee Pat, what other failed measures in other states do you not want to repeat?

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Young Republicans who helped elect North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory have been rewarded with big salaries in his new administration.

Matthew McKillip was named this week as chief policy adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos. Records show the 24-year-old received a $22,500 raise in April, bringing his salary to $87,500.

Before joining state government in January, McKillip worked for McCrory's 2012 campaign and spent 11 months as a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Records show 24-year-old DHHS Communications Director Ricky Diaz got an even bigger raise in April, boosting his state salary to $85,000. Diaz campaigned for McCrory after working for one year in the office of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

".......An Associated Press review of a database of state government salaries posted online by the Charlotte Observer (http://bit.ly/17Qpj8l ) shows other 20-something former Republican staffers who landed well-paying state jobs following McCrory's inauguration.

Crystal Feldman, a 27-year-old former congressional staffer and ex-spokeswoman for the California GOP, is paid $78,000 a year as the director of public affairs at the N.C. Department of Public Safety.

Ryan Minto, 28, who previously worked for Republicans U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, is paid $72,000 annually as the legislative liaison for the N.C. Department of Revenue.

Heather Lee Dickson, 29, makes $70,000 a year as the executive assistant to first lady Ann McCrory. She worked as a fundraiser for McCrory's 2008 gubernatorial campaign before moving to the finance staff of the N.C. Republican Party.

Ryan Tronovitch, a 28-year-old deputy press secretary in McCrory's office, makes $65,000 a year. He previously worked as a regional press secretary for the Republican National Committee.

Meredith McCullen, 26, who worked as McCrory's scheduler during his gubernatorial campaign, makes $52,000 a year as an administrative assistant to the governor."

""They got promotions," McCrory said. "They were actually moved over to areas that frankly a lot of older people applied for, too. But frankly, these two young people are very well qualified and they are being paid for jobs at which that's the pay rate for that job.""

Quote :

""We have university presidents making $400,000, we have coaches making a lot," McCrory said. "Listen, I wish we could have fair pay across the board, but to pick out two pays. ... I even questioned it. I said, `How can we give a young guy this.' But I can't discriminate based on age. Just because a young person does a better job than an older person who may have gotten that job. I went, `That's not right either.'""

I'm spotlighting them because some of them got huge raises, are getting very large salaries, and many don't seem to have much experience at all in the managerial positions they now hold.

Yes, if I found out the same think happened for Purdue, and I read an article where her husband had an "executive assistant" that was making $70k, I'd probably link it in the "Purdue Credibility Watch".

(I take that back. After thinking about it some more, if i'm quoting a full sentence, I'll put the punctuation inside the quotations. But if I'm just quoting a phrase, like in both posts above, i put the punctuation outside the quotes, because it's not linked to the phrase.)

those salaries for those positions is not really the issue (salaries seem fine to me). the issue is that we suspect that those people don't have much experience since they were hired from things unrelated to HHS and are very young (which we assume means limited experience, particularly in the HHS field); basically, good old fashion political cronyism.

(although I don't understand why the first lady needs an executive assistant)

"For decades, Democrats have stifled small businesses and job creators with undue bureaucratic burden and red tape. We have more than 22,000 rules on the books in state government, and this is unacceptable," McCrory said in a statement. "This commonsense legislation cuts government red tape, axes overly burdensome regulations and puts job creation first here in North Carolina."

If this was a democratic administration, the headline about H74 would be "State requires landfills to investigate waste gas-to-energy option!"

In regards to landfills:5 miles from wildlife refuge1 mile from game land500 feet from state gameland IF a.The waste disposal unit will only be permitted to accept construction and demolition debris waste, b. The disposal unit is located within the primary corporate limits of a municipality located in a county with a population of less than 15,000, c. All portions of the gameland within one mile of the disposal unit are separated from the disposal unit by a primary highway designated by the Federal Highway Administration as a U.S. Highway2 miles from state park

so basically, the only change is that if you can be closer to game land if its only construction debris and its seperated by a highway

In regards to leachate- it look slike now they only have to camera inspect leachate lines every 5 years, everything else looks the same. this is the only part that I'm upset about. the standard used to be every year, but you could extend if to 2 years if you had continuous flow monitoring. Extending it to 5 years may be fine, but they should have included the continuous flow monitoring requirement.